Chase the morning to Lincoln

Outside Holdrege

Almost to Hastings

Inching to Lincoln

Just try to sleep through the chattering birds of Holdrege. They start at 4:30, an hour before the first hint of blue strikes through darkest night. Flocks turn the budding trees into noise chambers, limiting any chance of me rolling over again. Not only do the birds in Holdrege strike early. The whole town seemed to hum at an hour when most struggle to awake. The coffee roasters beat the dawn. Trucks swing through town, loaded with cattle or headed for feed lots. 

The railroad rarely wanders far from the road. The grain bins top the skyline, rising several hundred feet above the tracks and the town. At Minden, I pulled off to look at the frontier village advertised for more than a hundred miles. In Kansas, it seemed like a funny thought – why advertise for a tourist attraction 167 miles down a number of highways off Interstate 70. Had anyone ever followed that suggestion and taken such a detour. At that, the village felt modest in the early light. But employees already milled around inside and shot me a glance or two.

On the prairie one need not travel far to escape the trucks. In every town the road swells to two lanes, and the police seemed unconcerned about a few extra mph to pass them. 

At one county boundary, a hawk perched on a highway sign, mostly hidden from easterly travelers. I spotted its lumpy head and turned around a quarter-mile later, photographing the raptor from a distance.

The entire trip to Lincoln delivered a light show. A patch of clouds catches most of the morning sun, throwing beams and haze to enliven the hour. Reds linger on the eastern horizon long after it has risen. Few cites Nebraska as big sky country, but there’s little question it qualifies. 

The miles to Lincoln don’t really click off. I could race the sunrise to Hastings and lose every time. Towns came to take on a few defining characteristics – grain bins adjacent to the railroad tracks, a handful of small businesses and factories that employed a chunk of each town. A list of smaller towns rattled off – Sutton, Fairmont, Exeter, Friend, Crete. I blinked, they passed. By Lincoln, the light show subsided. I found myself weaving through a series of one-way streets You would think it would be simple to reach of base of Lincoln’s tallest building. 

But it took a few minutes for me to arrive near the towering capitol. Blame the massive football stadium rising to the north, the true center of Nebraska attention – I mean no disrespect, but few fanbases run so rabid. I turned a corner and suddenly the soaring Nebraska capitol was just a block away. 

The nation’s second-largest capitol – Louisiana’s is taller because Gov. Huey Long insisted his state eclipse the Nebraska predecessor – has a working tower with a dome that acquits itself well in the morning light. The governor, legislature, supreme court and court of appeals all operate out of the capitol.

Aside from groundskeepers on riding mowers and random joggers, the capitol was quiet this Tuesday. I walked around to gauge the best angles for photographs. Looking south, the moon hung adjacent to the tower. Shooting from the west, shadows ran too deep for a dynamic shot of the capitol tower and a statue of Abraham Lincoln. On the sun-drenched northern and eastern sides, I had my pick of good angles. 

Sunken Gardens

I spent close to an hour looking up and enjoying strange solitude at the seat of Nebraska government. All the while The Sower stared back at me – the 20-feet statute atop the mosaic-covered dome symbolizes agriculture, and overlooks the rest of Lincoln and the state as far as the horizon reaches.

I didn’t want to walk the capitol grounds then split. The night before, I scoured the Lincoln map for a quick second stop. My finger stopped at the Sunken Gardens.

The tiny park tantalized me. A wealthy neighborhood took an old bend in a creek that had become a dumping ground and turned it into a community space. Koi swarmed in the rocky, rectangular ponds. Of course Lincoln deserved more time. 

On this trip, the Nebraska capital was one destination of many and I had three short Nebraska stops before I aimed toward Emporia. 

Koi in the Sunken Gardens ponds